Damage detection in plates using the electromechanical impedance technique based on decoupled measurements of piezoelectric transducers

Electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique plays an important role in the monitoring of structures with piezoelectric transducers (PT). According to the EMI technique, diagnosis and prognosis can be carried out to detect structural modifications in an operative state. However, to develop an efficient methodology for damage detection; damage metrics and patterns should be defined using indices to quantify changes in the signals. In this study, a new approach is proposed considering the electrical impedance (EI) of PT as an array of coupled electrical impedances. It means that when a PT is bonded to a structure, the EI is governed by an electrical circuit that is assumed to be parallel and composed by electrical contributions of both, the structure and the PT. In our perspective, each free PT presents unique mechanical characteristics and those differences may influence the measured electrical signals, therefore the electrical contributions generated by each piezo-transducer are taken into account. To evaluate the electrical decoupling, two methodologies of damage detection are proposed to identify and locate an induced damage. In these methodologies, the damage metrics are based on ellipses of Gaussian confidence. Four experimental tests were performed to evaluate the methodologies, applying two damage intensities. The results show that the partial process of identification of a damage type is a feasible and applicable procedure, moreover the proposed method was able to evidence the damage location..